"The Boxer movement is doubtless the product of official inspiration, but it has taken hold of the popular imagination and will spread like wildfire all over the length and breadth of the country: it is, in short, a purely patriotic volunteer movement, and its object is to strengthen China—and for a Chinese programme. Its first experience has not been altogether a success as regards the attainment through strength of proposed ends,—the rooting up of foreign cults and the ejection of foreigners, but it is not a failure in respect of the feeler it put out—will volunteering work?—or as an experiment that would test ways and means and guide future choice: it has proved how to a man the people will respond to the call, and it has further demonstrated that the swords and spears to which the prudent official mind confined the initiated will not suffice, but must be supplemented or replaced by Mauser rifles and Krupp guns: the Boxer patriot of the future will possess the best weapons money can buy, and then the 'Yellow Peril' will be beyond ignoring." _Robert Hart, The Peking Legations (Fortnightly Review, November, 1900)._ {109} CHINA: A. D. 1900 (March-April). Proposed joint naval demonstration of the Powers in Chinese waters. On receipt of the telegram from Peking (March 10) recommending a joint naval demonstration in North Chinese waters, the British Ambassador at Paris was directed to consult the Government of France on the subject, and did so. On the 13th, he reported M. Delcassé, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, as saying that "he could not, of course, without reflection and without consulting his colleagues, say what the decision of the French Government would be as to taking part in a naval demonstration, but at first sight it seemed to him that it would be difficult to avoid acting upon a suggestion which the Representatives of Five Powers, who ought to be good judges, considered advisable." On the 16th, he wrote to Lord Salisbury: "M. Delcassé informed me the day before yesterday that he had telegraphed to Peking for more precise information. I told him that I was glad to hear that no precipitate action was going to be taken by France, and that I believed that he would find that the United States' Government would be disinclined to associate themselves with any joint naval demonstration. I added that, although I had no instructions to say so, I expected that Her Majesty's Government would also adhere to their usual policy of proceeding with great caution, and would be in no hurry to take a step which only urgent necessity would render advisable."